Historic Dual Listing of a Polish Company on the London Stock Exchange.

Kochański Zięba & Partners (KZP) law firm advised Work Service S.A., a company listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, on the admission of all its shares on the standard listing segment of the Official List of the UK Listing Authority, and to trading on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange (dual listing). The services provided by KZP included comprehensive legal advice on the transaction structuring, preparation of the summary document, communications with, and furnishing the required documents and explanations to the UK regulatory authorities, and negotiating and preparing agreements and legal opinions for Euroclear and Capita IRG Trustees Limited.

The technical dual listing was collectively designed, project-managed and coordinated from start to finish by Kochanski Zięba & Partners (Poland) and Pinsent Masons (UK) law firms, as well as ProPrimo Consultants.

Szymon Gałkowski, the Partner that led the project for Kochanski Zięba & Partners, advises “The dual listing of a Polish company through depositary interests on the London Stock Exchange is the first of its kind, and we have seen a greater amount of interest from Polish companies seeking to follow in Work Service’s footsteps, as this gives Polish companies access to a large pool of new capital and investors, and increases their visibility on international markets. The procedure took more than 3 months, which is not long considering the pioneering nature of the project, the requirements to prepare the summary document and to provide explanations to the UK regulatory authority regarding the differences between the structures of the Polish and UK capital markets. We would even say that we are happy that the process took so little time, if you consider that the company, in order to apply for the admission of its shares to trading on the London Stock Exchange, had to meet a number of criteria defined in the Listing Rules – one of those most important for the Main Market being that 25% of the securities must be in “public hands”. We are proud that we have contributed to the first ever dual listing of a Polish company through depositary interests on the London Stock Exchange.”

Rafał Zięba, Co-Managing Partner at Kochański Zięba & Partners, observed: “Our involvement in this pioneering project proves that it’s no coincidence that our Firm has been included in the prestigious Financial Times Innovative Lawyers ranking and has also been shortlisted in The Lawyer European Awards 2016 for the ‘Law Firm of the Year: Central Europe’ award, the winner of which will be announced on 9 March 2016 in London.”